Seven years of tracking electronic publishing: the ARL Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists
| Pages | 17-25 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378839910267154 |
| Published date | 01 March 1999 |
| Date | 01 March 1999 |
| Author | Dru Mogge |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
17
History of the ARL
Directory
Since 1991, the Association of Research
Libraries (ARL) has followed the growth of
electronic publications through its annual Direc-
tory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Acade-
mic Discussion Lists[1]. Each edition of the ARL
Directory has offered a snapshot of the state of e-
publishing at that time. The database of elec-
tronic journals and newsletters maintained by
ARL began with the work done in 1990 by
Michael Strangelove while he was a graduate
student at the University of Ottawa. Strangelove
set out to provide a comprehensive listing of all
journals and newsletters of academic interest
that were available through academic and com-
mercial networks. The files he compiled were
made available via the BITNET network
through a listserv and via the Internet through
an anonymous FTP site on the University of
Ottawa server.
In 1990, ARL and North Carolina State
University Libraries collaborated to call a meet-
ing of refereed e-journal editors and publishers,
librarians, and other interested parties. Of the
eight journals represented (plus one who could
not attend), five are still actively publishing.
These early e-journals were edited and pub-
lished by scholars and academics on a volunteer
basis, on top of their regular workload. While
these e-journals were generally university-
based, they were without formal institutional
sponsorship. The subject areas of these titles
were mainly the humanities and social sciences
because, at the time, plain text was the predomi-
nant method of delivery via the Internet. In fact,
most of these publications were available
through either FTP (file transfer protocol) sites
or e-mail using listserv software. The Web
would not become a major factor until late 1994
when NCSA’s Mosaic, and then Netscape,
offered users the combination of images, text,
and hypertext links.
As a result of the interest sparked by the
North Carolina meeting and the general
acknowledgment by the academic world that
electronic publishing offered scholars an excit-
ing new way to share their research, Ann
Okerson, then Director of the Office of Scientific
and Academic Publishing (OSAP) at ARL,
collaborated with Michael Strangelove and
Diane Kovacs to create a print directory. The
Seven years of tracking
electronic publishing:
the ARL
Directory of
Electronic Journals,
Newsletters and
Academic Discussion
Lists
Dru Mogge
The author
Dru Mogge is Electronic Services Coordinator for the
Association of Research Libraries, Washington, DC. She is
editor of the ARL
Directory of Electronic Journals,
Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists
and developed
the Web-based
DEJ Online
for the seventh edition of the ARL
Directory
.
E-mail: dru@arl.org
Keywords
Electronic publishing, Internet conferencing
Abstract
The ARL
Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and
Academic Discussion Lists
covers an important period in the
development of Internet publishing. Since 1991, each of the
seven annual editions of the ARL
Directory
has offered a
snapshot of the state of Internet publishing at that time. ARL
researchers examine the characteristics of an e-journal as
they search for and profile new titles. Trends in format,
distribution, and content are explored by reviewing the kinds
of e-serials that make up each edition of the ARL
Directory
.
Library Hi Tech
Volume 17 · Number 1 · 1999 · pp. 17–25
© MCB University Press · ISSN 0737-8831
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